Sunday 11 September 2011

NGOS IN THE SERVICE OF THE MALAYSIAN PEOPLES

NGOS IN THE SERVICE OF THE MALAYSIAN PEOPLES

By Dr Kua Kia Soong, Director of SUARAM, 11 Sept 2011

[Note: This article is prepared and presented by Dr. Kua Kia Soong in the "NGOs Are Always With The People" forum organized in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Friends of SUARAM (FOS) Working Committee Johor on 11th September 2011.]

1. NGOs and the Peoples’ Interests

NGOs exist to defend, promote and develop the particular interest for which they were formed. It was during the crisis within the ruling party in 1987 and mass ISA arrests and detentions under Operation Lallang that SUARAM took shape. Upon their release in 1989, the Operation Lallang detainees and others in the Families Support Group founded SUARAM to campaign for the abolition of the ISA and to monitor, document and to defend human rights. SUARAM has since been the main NGO opposing detention without trial.

Since 1989, it has been the main coordinating secretariat for the Movement against the ISA and other detention without trial laws, the EO and the DDA. Our office serves as the refuge for those whose family members have been victims of state oppression. We send Urgent Appeals throughout the world whenever any detention or other violations of human rights happen.

But SUARAM’s mission is much more than that: “to work toward a society that is peaceful, free, equal, just and sustainable through empowering people to create new progressive democratic alternatives.”

In the last 22 years, SUARAM has operated with a skeletal staff of committed activists and volunteers. The funding we get goes into nurturing young activists in human rights work. We employ a handful of dedicated young staff who have chosen this path of service in human rights work.

Despite its small staff, SUARAM publishes the only credible and detailed Human Rights Report every year without fail and has been doing so since 1998. Such a report is an invaluable service to all the peoples of Malaysia irrespective of ethnicity, religion or creed and also to inform the rest of the world.

Throughout its existence in the last 22 years, SUARAM staff and secretariat have been involved in human rights and environmental education, giving talks, organising seminars and providing training. SUARAM has initiated fact finding missions and campaigns against the Bakun dam, the Selangor dam to protect the interests of indigenous peoples, the environment and the interests of Malaysian tax payers. We have also supported marginalised communities such as the urban settlers, estate communities and refugees when they have met eviction and state oppression. We are also in the campaign to bring back elected local government.

Our branches in JB (1999) and Penang (2002) were set up in order that we can serve the people there better and to improve our documentation and monitoring of human rights violations in the rest of the country.

2. NGOs and the Malaysian Peoples’ Movement

Since its founding, SUARAM has worked toward a healthy democratic movement in the country and we could well say that Gagasan Rakyat and all the efforts by SUARAM in the last 20 years have produced today’s two-front system and the political tsunami of 2008. Some leaders in Pakatan Rakyat have been members of the Secretariat of SUARAM at some time or other.

We have succeeded in building a network of NGOs and groups, notably on the drafting of the Malaysian Charter on Human Rights in 1994, the Malaysian Human Rights Report in 1998, the Coalition against the Bakun Dam in 1995 and Gagasan Democrasi Rakyat in 1998. We are of course part of the Bersih coalition. The process involved in forging those coalitions has been as valuable as the formation of the coalitions themselves in our mission to build a human rights movement in this country.

Reaching beyond Malaysia, SUARAM has also become part of the regional human rights network because we believe that a more meaningful way to promote understanding amongst the people of ASEAN and Asia-Pacific is to uphold and promote human rights in the region. Thus, we have played an active role in the Asia Pacific Peoples Assembly in 1998, Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor in 1996, Burma Solidarity and other regional issues. This is consistent with the spirit of the universality of human rights and anti-imperialism which stretches beyond frontiers to every society on our planet, including Bosnia, Palestine and others. The campaign for disarmament and a culture of peace must also extend to the whole ASEAN community.

3. NGOs and Malaysian Politics

NGOs can and must play a constructive role in ensuring that the peoples’ interests are safeguarded in Malaysian politics. The recent Bersih coalition is perhaps the best example of how NGOs have raised the “yellow” demands relating to ensuring free and fair elections in Malaysia. The Lynas and Bukit Koman environmental campaigns are rightfully raising the “green” demands for environmental protection and peoples’ health protection in industrial projects. These demands will not be complete without the “red” demands of civil and political rights. These have been SUARAM’s concerns ever since it was founded in 1989.

It is vital for Malaysian democracy and sustainable development that communities are empowered in their struggle against the misconceived projects and the accompanying oppressive methods used to push them through. The cases of kampongs in which the communities stood firm against the developers’ gangsters, enforcement officers, the FRU and their water cannons. So is the case at Bukit Merah where the involvement and support of the local community was sustained throughout the campaign. They carried on the fight for a safe living environment free from radioactive contamination. Today, the communities fighting against the Lynas rare earth plant and the Bukit Koman gold mine are the front lines of this struggle for peoples’ interests before profits.

Their commitment to the struggle, leadership and community solidarity should be emulated by all Malaysian communities. They have shown us that direct action is about empowering people to unite as individuals with a common aim, to change things directly by our own actions.

The reality in Malaysia is a crisis of increasing disparities in the distribution of wealth in the country; between East and West Malaysia; between rural and urban areas; between men and women; the victimisation of marginalised groups including indigenous peoples, urban settlers, plantation communities and other minorities; and the depletion of forest, energy and water resources. The pattern has been that it is the rich and powerful backed by political leaders who decide what is to be produced, which resources to exploit and how much profits will be made. More often than not, it is the politically well-connected companies who get the plum contracts.

Our economy needs planning guided by a highly mobilised labour movement and high level of participation in civil society. There must be plural forms of ownership without unaccountable concentration of private power, a mixture of plan and market as well as a vibrant co-operative and communal sector. Within the workplace and in the wider society, there must be democratic forms of participation. The goal of production is to meet human needs although there is a role for regulated markets such as for intermediate need goods, eg. clothing, foodstuffs.

The peoples’ interests must extend to supporting peoples in other countries who are victims of imperialist aggression. Suaram has also been consistent in opposing and condemning US / western imperialism all these years. We are part of the “Stop the War Coalition” and have coordinated Anti-US demonstrations and protests against the US-led occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

4. A Third Force against Neo-liberalism

Thus NGOs must continue to serve the people by building the third force that works toward the defeat of neo-liberalism and reclaiming Malaysian resources for the Malaysian peoples. Its first objective is the overthrow of the BN regime that has divided and oppressed the Malaysian peoples since Independence and thrived on neo-liberal capitalist exploitation. As in the 2008 general elections, we must forge a strategic alliance with Pakatan Rakyat to overthrow the BN coalition and to reinstate our basic freedoms, liberal democracy and human rights.

In the course of this strategic alliance and knowing the sizeable number of defections from Pakatan Rakyat to BN after the 2008 elections, we hope that Pakatan Rakyat will compromise realistically with the Third Force when the time comes for candidates’ selection.

Within the Peoples’ Front, NGOs can play a crucial role in adjudicating the selection of candidates and ensuring we do not have any more toads, donkeys or moronic oxen that we saw after the 2008 general elections. To avoid the usual horse trading and bad form it gives the federal opposition, NGOs can form an ‘Independent Peoples’ Candidates’ Selection Committee’ to objectively vet the suitability of the peoples’ candidates for the 13th general elections and prevent three cornered fights in any constituency. Respected leaders among the NGOs will be the most suitable impartial members of this committee. In the process, this will also help the Peoples’ Front by minimizing the bickering that invariably happens during the inter-party negotiations before every general election. This NGO committee should also adjudicate the claims by the PR parties regarding their claims to particular constituencies.

After the downfall of BN, the struggle against neo-liberal capitalism will certainly go on under a PR government as we fight for the rights and interests of the people. Pakatan Rakyat has not renounced neo-liberal policies which have allowed multi-national corporations and the big companies to plunder the country’s resources, buying up privatized resources at rock bottom prices. Powerful capitalist interests control our resources and markets and thrive on the cheap labour of Maslaysian workers and migrant labour. The price has been paid by workers and the poor whose living standards continue to be pushed downwards.

This resistance to unrestrained neo-liberalism is simultaneously to empower oppressed people in the process of democratic participatory socialism. Popular democratic participation is not just in economic but also political institutions. There is a need for state intervention and nationalization of basic resources such as oil and gas; utilities such as water, energy; health, education and social services. Unfettered capital transfers by speculators and finance capitalists must also be checked.

Only through direct action and mass movement will there to be true grassroots democracy. Power should be based on the self-organisation of workers and other communities in their struggle against capital. Directly elected workplace and community councils take responsibility for their own affairs and this is linked to decisions for society at large.

Real democracy will never be attained merely through periodic general elections and relying on parliament alone. To make democracy work, we must step up the demands we make from outside Parliament. Democracy is more than simply voting once in five years for as the saying goes,

“If voting in the general elections ever changed anything, they would have abolished it by now!”
 ---


Link: 
1) 我国非政府组织-志在为人民服务
2) NGO BERKHIDMAT UNTUK RAKYAT MALAYSIA

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工委会议决:将徐袖珉除名

人民之友工委会2020年9月27日常月会议针对徐袖珉(英文名: See Siew Min)半年多以来胡闹的问题,议决如下:

鉴于徐袖珉长期以来顽固推行她的“颜色革命”理念和“舔美仇华”思想,蓄意扰乱人民之友一贯以来的“反对霸权主义,反对种族主义”政治立场,阴谋分化甚至瓦解人民之友推动真正民主改革的思想阵地,人民之友工委会经过长时间的考察和验证,在2020年9月27日会议议决;为了明确人民之友创立以来的政治立场以及贯彻人民之友现阶段以及今后的政治主张,必须将徐袖珉从工委会名单上除名,并在人民之友部落格发出通告,以绝后患。

2020年9月27日发布



[ 漫画新解 ]
新冠病毒疫情下的马来西亚
舔美精神患者的状态

年轻一辈人民之友有感而作


注:这“漫画新解”是反映一名自诩“智慧高人一等”而且“精于民主理论”的老姐又再突发奇想地运用她所学会的一丁点“颜色革命”理论和伎俩来征服人民之友队伍里的学弟学妹们的心理状态——她在10多年前曾在队伍里因时时表现自己是超群精英,事事都要别人服从她的意愿而人人“惊而远之”,她因此而被挤出队伍近10年之久。

她在三年前被一名年长工委推介,重新加入人民之友队伍。可是,就在今年年初她又再故态复萌,尤其是在3月以来,不断利用部落格的贴文,任意扭曲而胡说八道。起初,还以“不同意见者”的姿态出现,以博取一些不明就里的队友对她的同情和支持,后来,她发现了她的欺骗伎俩无法得逞之后,索性撤下了假面具,对人民之友一贯的“反对霸权主义、反对种族主义”的政治立场,发出歇斯底里的叫嚣,而暴露她设想人民之友“改旗易帜”的真面目!

尤其是在新冠病毒疫情(COVID-19)课题上,她公然猖狂跟人民之友的政治立场对着干,指责人民之友服务于中国文宣或大中华,是 “中国海外统治部”、“中华小红卫兵”等等等等。她甚至通过强硬粗暴手段擅自把我们的WhatsApp群组名称“Sahabat Rakyat Malaysia”改为“吐槽美国样衰俱乐部”这样的无耻行动也做得出来。她的这种种露骨的表现足以说明了她是一名赤裸裸的“反中仇华”份子。

其实,在我们年轻队友看来,这名嘲讽我们“浪费了20年青春”[人民之友成立至今近20年(2001-9-9迄今)]并想要“拯救我们年轻工委”的这位“徐大姐”,她的思想依然停留在20年前的上个世纪。她初始或许是不自觉接受了“西方民主”和“颜色革命”思想的培养,而如今却是自觉地为维护美国的全球霸权统治而与反对美国霸权支配全球的中国人民和全世界各国(包括马来西亚)人民为敌。她是那么狂妄自大,却是多么幼稚可笑啊!

她所说的“你们浪费了20年青春”正好送回给她和她的跟班,让他们把她的这句话吞到自己的肚子里去!


[ 漫画新解 ]
新冠病毒疫情下的马来西亚
"公知"及其跟班的精神面貌

注:这“漫画新解”是与<人民之友>4月24日转贴的美国政客叫嚣“围剿中国”煽动颠覆各国民间和组织 >(原标题为<当心!爱国队伍里混进了这些奸细……>)这篇文章有关联的。这篇文章作者沈逸所说的“已被欧美政治认同洗脑的‘精神欧美人’”正是马来西亚“公知”及其跟班的精神面貌的另一种写照!




[ 漫画新解 ]
新冠病毒疫情下的马来西亚
"舔美"狗狗的角色

编辑 / 来源:人民之友 / 网络图库

注:这“漫画新解”是与《察网》4月22日刊林爱玥专栏文章<公知与鲁迅之间 隔着整整一个中国 >这篇文章有关联的,这是由于这篇文章所述说的中国公知,很明显是跟这组漫画所描绘的马来西亚的“舔美”狗狗,有着孪生兄弟姐妹的亲密关系。

欲知其中详情,敬请点击、阅读上述文章内容,再理解、品味以下漫画的含义。这篇文章和漫画贴出后,引起激烈反响,有人竟然对号入座,暴跳如雷且发出恐吓,众多读者纷纷叫好且鼓励加油。编辑部特此接受一名网友建议:在显著的布告栏内贴出,方便网友搜索、浏览,以扩大宣传教育效果。谢谢关注!谢谢鼓励!












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